The last thing he needed right now was his body to malfunction on him again, and much less in front of DAX. It was embarrassing, and again it got him wondering how he could feel so out-of-place in a human body, if he'd actually been human all along... but the mind was a powerful thing. Maybe he just... wanted it to be difficult, or... he didn't know what to think anymore. He could do without his eyes hurting though.

ZEX always did like to be touched, and he leaned into DAX's hand, although he wasn't sure what he was doing. It was easier to focus on how that felt, rather than anything else. If he could just... anything else, if there was anything else, rather than letting this doubt gnaw and gnaw at him until...

"Go somewhere with you?" ZEX said softly, taking the piece of cloth slowly. "Go home?" His voice hitched at the word 'home', his world, Cerenkov, all of it so clear in his memory and things the way they were supposed to be. "I do want to go home..." And he was increasingly beginning to fear that maybe he was never going to. The thought was extremely painful. "But you're probably not thinking of Cerenkov, are you..."

Anything else but this, anything... anything else. "I'll probably never go home again, will I..."

ZEX paused, reaching out for DAX's hand again. He looked down slightly. "If I... if I did leave here, with you... what would happen to my Captain? Caleb, what would happen to him?"